Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 36; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 182; Kirk, Students' Fl. 67. Brathys Forsteri, Spach in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, v. 367; Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 47.
North and South Islands: From Whangaroa North (Petrie!) to the south of Otago, but rare and local to the north of Hawke's Bay. Altitudinal range from sea-level to 2000 ft. Also found in Australia and Tasmania, and in New Caledonia.
2. H. japonicum, Thunb. Fl. Jap. 295, t. 31.—A slender procumbent or diffuse much or sparingly branched plant 2–6 in. high; branches ascending at the tips. Leaves small, 16–13 in., broadly oblong or oblong-ovate or obovate-oblong, obtuse, quite entire, often glaucous, marked with pellucid dots, sessile; margins usually flat. Flowers smaller than in H. gramineum, solitary or in few-flowered cymes; pedicels short, slender. Sepals oblong or ovate, obtuse or subacute. Petals slightly exceeding the sepals. Capsule broadly ovoid, small.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 37; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 182; Kirk, Students' Fl. 67. H. pusillum, Choisy, Prodr. Hyp. 50; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 596.
North and South Islands: Not uncommon in moist places from the North Cape to Otago. Altitudinal range from sea-level to over 3000 ft.
Extends northwards through Australia and the Malay Archipelago to India, China, and Japan. Very closely allied to the preceding, but usually readily distinguished by its procumbent habit, broader flatter obtuse leaves and smaller fewer flowers. (The European H. humifusum, Linn., has become naturalised in many places, and may easily be mistaken for H. japonicum. It is usually larger, with stiffer and more wiry stems and branches, larger and more pointed leaves which have a row of black glandular dots just inside the margin, and larger flowers with more pointed often glandular-toothed sepals.)
Order X. MALVACEÆ.
Herbs, shrubs, or soft-wooded trees, usually with tough fibrous inner bark, young parts frequently clothed with stellate hairs. Leaves stipulate, alternate, often palmately veined, entire or lobed or rarely compound. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or rarely uni-sexual, often furnished at the base with a kind of involucel composed of few or many free or connate bractlets. Sepals 5, valvate, more or less united into a lobed or entire calyx, persistent. Petals 5, hypogynous, contorted in the bud. Stamens many, hypogynous; filaments united into a tube surrounding the pistil usually called the staminal column; anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary 2–many-celled, of 2 to many carpels whorled round a common axis; carpels either distinct or united; ovules 1 or more to each carpel, attached to the inner angle. Fruit either of dry indehiscent or dehiscent cocci, or a capsule with loculicidal dehiscence. Seeds reniform or obovoid; albumen scanty or wanting; embryo often curved, cotyledons broad, foliaceous.
